Checks and Balances: Looking at the Unbalanced Schedule

There have been massive overhauls of the internal structure of baseball
over the last 10 years. Major League Baseball expanded to Colorado and
Florida in 1993, realigned and added the Wild Card in 1995, introduced
interleague play in 1997, and expanded to Arizona and Tampa Bay in 1998.
Each of these changes necessitated a change in major league baseball’s
scheduling, but in each of these changes a balanced schedule was maintained;
the schedule made sure teams played every other team in the league an almost
equal number of times. There was no such thing as strength of schedule.

Starting in 2001, MLB implemented an unbalanced
schedule with the usual amount of fanfare and fan disgust that usually
accompanies such changes. The change increased games between teams in the
same division while decreasing the number of games against other teams in
the league. The reasons behind the change were many, but certainly one of
the most prevalent was that increasing the meetings between divisional
rivals would pique fan interest and peak attendance and, subsequently,
revenue. Who wouldn’t want more games between the Red Sox and Yankees? Or
the Cubs and Cardinals? Or the Devil Rays and Orioles?

It seems, however, that things didn’t quite work out as planned. While
there are a multitude of factors that affect a team’s attendance, the
opponent in town can have a dramatic affect on attendance. But since the
number of divisional rivalry games has increased, attendance at such games
has gone down. Here are attendance figures for all teams (2003 figures are
through Aug. 31) in games against teams in the same division, divided by
average attendance in non-divisional games:

To make the point a little more clear, here’s a list of the number of
teams that drew significantly fewer fans at divisional games than at
non-division games each of the last six years (we’ll loosely define
significant as 5.0%):

2003: 7
2002: 15
2001: 15
2000: 5
1999: 7
1998: 3

While things seem to have turned around this season, keep in mind that
many divisional games are slotted for September to keep fans interested in
the pennant races. Once the season has concluded, a more solid appraisal
can be performed.

Looking more closely at things, the unbalanced schedule did have the
effect major league baseball intended: the divisional rivalries like Red
Sox-Yankees, Cardinals-Cubs, and Dodgers-Giants are more highly attended.
However, the consequences of scheduling more of those games are the poorly attended games against other teams in the division. For
example, while Dodger fans line up to Pasadena to get into Giants games,
ownership can’t give away tickets against the Padres or Rockies.

The trends are pretty consistent around the league, but there are
limitations. For instance, teams that sell out nearly all their games, for
instance Boston and San Francisco, don’t reveal the same tendencies. Also,
teams without a so-called “natural rivalry” in the division, for example
Philadelphia, don’t have the same pronounced difference between one team and
the rest of the division. On the contrary, they tend to show a dip in
attendance across the board against divisional teams.

This season, league-wide attendance is on pace for around 67 million
fans, down from 68 million last year after four years over 70 million.
A wide variety of factors outside of baseball have likely
contributed to this decline: terrorist attacks, a nationwide recession, and
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the unbalanced schedule is the
only change implemented by MLB that closely coincides with
this slowdown at the turnstiles. While macroeconomic issues like the
economy affect league attendance as a whole, they cannot explain the dip in
attendance at inter-divisional games, games that now account for a much more
significant percentage of the major league schedule than they used to.

Analyzing this issue without taking into account the effect of ticket
prices on patronage and revenue does leave the issue open for debate, but
the declining number of fans going to games that were added to increase
attendance cannot be ignored. There are already enough justifications for
abolishing the unbalanced schedule dealing with competitive unfairness when
competing for the Wild Card. If the sole motive for implementing the
unbalanced schedule, increasing attendance, has actually backfired, there
remains no reason to keep the unbalanced schedule in place.

Thank you for reading

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